Club Legion member Stucky's images enliven local office

Jim Oxford, National Commander of the American Legion, commended the director of the organization's D.C. headquarters on newly installed photographs decorating the offices during a visit last month.

 

The director explained that all were taken by a National Press Club member who is also a  Navy veteran and a Legion member.

 

Photographer Rex Alan Stucky was hired by Louis Celli, Jr., executive director of the Legion's Government and Veterans Affairs Office on K Street, to produce 20 large-format pictures of dramatic Washington scenes to brighten the once-stogy walls of the seven-story building.

 

 

 

Celli had no idea when he discovered Stucky's art that the photographer was a veteran and a member of National Press Club American Legion Post 20. 

 

"That is exactly the kind of art we need," Celli said to a colleague as he entered an M Street restaurant (The Meeting Place) and saw Stucky's stunning 6-by-8-foot picture of the Capitol at sunset in the entryway.

 

Celli tracked down Stucky and negotiated a deal to redecorate the Legion offices with photos from the photographer's portfolio of D.C. landmarks photographed over a 60-year career in Washington. Photos range from a 1961 nighttime picture of the Lincoln Memorial taken with a 4-by-5-inch antique Graflex camera to scenes shot using the latest in digital photography.

 

Stucky was easy for Celli to find. He'd had a 28-year career in the famed National Geographic photo department, managing its color lab and doing special projects while freelancing as a wedding and special events photographer. 

 

He had honed his stills as a young newspaper photographer  in Ohio and as a Cold War-era photographers mate in Iceland where the Navy monitored Soviet sub traffic.  He'd graduated tops in his class at the Naval Photographic School in Pensacola, Fla.

 

Among the Legion office photos is a copy of the one that started it all, the U.S. Capitol at sunset.